I have broken my blogging hiatus in response to a conversation on Twitter that came to my attention yesterday. In response to a tweet from the Department for Education (DfE) regarding tips on improving mental health support in schools a headteacher responded by advising that they had just had to let their school counsellor go […] Continue reading
As the dust began to settle following GCSE result day 2016 and we looked forward to a bank holiday weekend, the Department for Education (DfE) published a judgement by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) regarding the non-compliant admissions policy of our local free school, Becket Keys. While the ruling was made on the […] Continue reading
When I wrote Those concerned with “student quality” should be shamed not lauded last week I thought I had covered every instance of how some schools manipulate admissions to their school. Following interactions and communications locally since then I have realised that I have underestimated the depths to which some will stoop. Having been appraised of […] Continue reading
In March this year a report was published by a group of consultants, (*Please see below)whom most had never heard of, advising academy schools how to bring about ‘improvement’ to their school. Based on their study of around 160 academies, it provided a checklist of actions that, if followed, would bring about improved league table […] Continue reading
For those of us who formed Educating Brentwood, just over four years ago, this was the week when an unprecedented number of chickens came home to roost. The process of establishing a free school locally as another closed due to excess surplus places had brought vividly home to some of us the dangers to local […] Continue reading
Next month is the fourth anniversary of the formation of Educating Brentwood. A relatively short time ago but long enough, it seems, for the central concerns about the threat to educational accountability that we resolved to highlight locally and nationally to become glaring realities. The consequences of adopting a free market approach to school commissioning […] Continue reading
It would appear that we are opening a new chapter in the story of the ‘free school programme’ after Schools Week revealed that those applying to set up a new school would no longer have to “prove they have interest from parents”. Furthermore, any claims of embodying ‘localism’ have been well and truly buried as […] Continue reading
You may not yet have seen the advertisements that the Department for Education (DfE) have chosen to run in response to the teacher shortage that they seem reluctant to publicly acknowledge. Before they had even been broadcast they were subject to a complaint to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) as reported in Schools Week. The […] Continue reading
